Human Face

by Aline Templeton

  ‘I authorised the SOCOs to get started and they’ve got all they need from the body so I’ve agreed to release it to be taken back for tests. The current estimate for time of death is late evening, early morning, and the pathologist and the photographer have both finished now. The chopper’s on its way and I’ve recommended they send off anything they can – I’ve arranged for top priority, so it shouldn’t take too long to get some results.’

  It was hard not to let her see how irritated he felt. It was his job as SIO to give all the permissions and he would have preferred to see the body in situ for himself, but you didn’t argue with a DCS. Particularly not this one.

  ‘No problem,’ he said.

  Borthwick wasn’t fooled. She looked at him with a faint, ironic smile. ‘It’s all right, I’m going back with them. You’re still in charge.’

  ‘Oh – er—’ he stammered.

  She laughed, giving him one of her direct looks. ‘Oh, you’re not wrong – taking over, parachuting in someone with more experience, was a temptation. But the whole point of the pilot scheme is that it should be possible to operate within the structure that’s been set up. So over to you.’

  Would she, he wondered cynically, have taken the same decision if it hadn’t been suicide? He doubted it, which made him feel defensive, but he said gracefully, ‘I appreciate your confidence in me, ma’am.’

  ‘Mmm,’ she said. There was still a hint of a smile lurking round her mouth. ‘So, Inspector, what happens now?’

  He didn’t hesitate. ‘This may have been suicide, but there are still two girls who went missing, presumed dead. I just want to see if anyone has changed their story now the threat of Adam Carnegie’s displeasure isn’t hanging over them.’

  Not having been SIO before, Strang had never visited a crime scene in the immediate aftermath. His detective work had been done from photographs and computer film, and graphic though these were it wasn’t anything like this. He put on a white suit and overshoes from the pile by the door then paused on the threshold for a moment, fighting down his visceral reaction.

  There was the smell of blood, for a start, sweet and cloying. And here was blood, indeed; it looked like a scene from the Grand Guignol.

  The body had gone already but its position was sketched in chalk on the desk, where Carnegie had fallen forward, arms outstretched. The wall above had been sprayed with blood and the saturated carpet below looked as if it was rust-red, not pale gold.

  In the rest of the room there was a pattern of red paw prints where the frantic dog had raced round and round, spreading the blood even onto the woodwork and the French doors.

  It was gruesome, horrifying. But then the shocking secondary impact hit him: how normal everything else was. The ambience was calm, attractive; a gleaming kitchen at one end, expensive sofas and table lamps, still burning, good prints on the walls – Rothko’s Rust and Blue above the desk, spattered with the rust-red of blood now.

  A laptop lay on one of the sofas, as if Carnegie had just set it down to fetch the knife that had killed him – Strang could see the expensive hardwood block, with one slot empty, standing on the work surface. The knife itself was lying bagged on the desk and covered with fingerprint powder beside the chalk outline of where it had been found.

  The SOCOs seemed to be starting to pack up. He turned to the team leader, a dour-looking man with a sour expression.

  ‘That’s definitely what was used?’ Strang said, pointing to it. He was still sceptical.

  The man looked at him askance. ‘The prints match perfectly and they’re in a grip pattern as well. It’s certainly big enough and sharp enough – it was quite a neat little slit in exactly the right place, just severing the carotid artery. Not a bad way to go – he’d be dead in minutes, seconds, even, and lose consciousness before that. And there’s no sign at all of any disturbance.’

  Strang nodded, then indicated the laptop. ‘Anything on that? Note, email, anything?’

  ‘No. Watching hard porn. Must’ve just closed it down and gone to the desk,’ he said firmly as he picked up the bagged knife. ‘The chopper’s due shortly. We’ve got what we need so we’re close to finished here now.’

  ‘Really?’ Strang swivelled again to survey the room. He just wasn’t buying this. Here was this man, sitting in his comfortable room, indulging in his sleazy little pleasure, who then gets up and sits down at his desk to slit his throat? Hard to bring yourself to slice your own skin; much easier to pull a trigger, and he’d had a gun readily available. No, whatever the immediate evidence might say, he reckoned this was a crime scene.

  ‘Other prints around the room?’ he asked.

  ‘Any number. We’d need to get prints from everyone with legitimate access if we were planning to take it further.’ He sounded discouraging.

  Strang wasn’t discouraged. ‘What about the handle of the patio door?’

  The man pulled a face. ‘Smudges. You couldn’t take anything from that.’

  ‘But not a clear print from Carnegie?’

  ‘Not clear, no. Plenty round about on the woodwork.’

  He looked round about him again. Certainly, there hadn’t been any sort of altercation; if Carnegie had been killed, he’d been taken by surprise. Even so …

  ‘But wouldn’t you have expected to find that, if he’d shut it himself?’

  ‘Not necessarily. Could just have been the way he did it. You can’t go reading anything into it.’

  His tone was dismissive and the message was clear: the expert has spoken.

  Strang wasn’t about to accept that. ‘I don’t want anything scamped. Treat this as a crime scene.’

  The man glared at him. ‘It’ll cost, you know. Take us into the second day.’

  ‘I’ve noted your objection. Carry on.’

  This whole thing could blow up in his face. Strang knew all about the budget constraints, but JB had told him he’d have to be a maverick; it was his job to cause trouble.

  He spent a little more time there, wondering if he was right: would the dog have permitted the attack on its master, for instance? But he’d made his decision and, satisfied that his orders were being, however reluctantly, carried out, he left and headed down the drive towards Kaczka’s gatehouse.

  At the interview Tennant had sabotaged with his aggression, Strang had been convinced that the man knew something useful that he had been frightened to say, and his position might be quite different now.

  PC Murray had been lying in wait for DI Strang and when he emerged from Carnegie’s flat she called after him. ‘DI Strang!’

  He turned. ‘Yes, Murray?’

  He didn’t exactly look overjoyed to see her, but she fell into step beside him. ‘DCS Borthwick told me to report to you, sir. I’ve found out there was a car that came here last night. Are you going to see Kaczka?’

  ‘Yes, I had planned to.’

  She shot him a sideways look. OK, he’d a lot on his mind and he was trying to get rid of her but if there was one thing her earlier police experience had taught her, it was that you stuck your foot in the door when someone tried to shut it in your face.

  ‘This morning Sergeant Buchanan detailed me to ask him if he’d noticed anything last night and he said he’d heard a car come up the drive and then it went away a bit later. So maybe we should be considering that as the time of death, not first thing in the morning. That would mean —’

  He cut her short. ‘Forensics will be able to establish an approximate time of death very shortly so there’s not much point in playing guessing games, is there? In any case, at the moment the evidence suggests he took his own life.’

  ‘You mean – it isn’t a murder investigation after all?’ She couldn’t disguise her disappointment.

  With some acerbity, he said, ‘Murder isn’t an entertainment, Constable. Anyway, we’re still trying to establish what happened to those two girls, so—’

  He broke off. A car came up the drive and stopped, about fifty yards from the house. A man was get
ting out, an overweight man, who was staring at the activity going on outside Carnegie’s flat. Even at this distance, Murray could see that he had a strong resemblance to Beatrice Lacey and the expression on his face was anguished.

  Strang walked over to him. ‘Looking for someone?’

  ‘Yes. I need to speak to the person in charge – there’s something I need to tell them.’

  ‘You’re speaking to him. DI Strang. And you are?’

  ‘My name’s Quentin Lacey. My sister—’

  ‘Right. Look, I think you’d better come inside so we can talk, sir,’ Strang said, and with Murray, unbidden, following them, he took Lacey into the house and, looking round, saw the door to Beatrice’s office was open.

  ‘This will do,’ he said. ‘Do you know what’s happened to her?’

  Quentin sank onto a chair beside the desk, taking out a handkerchief to mop his forehead. ‘I know she’s murdered Adam and done a runner,’ he said.

  ‘She ran away, yes, but the evidence at present doesn’t suggest she did anything else.’

  Lacey’s jaw dropped. ‘You mean – she didn’t do it?’

  ‘I can’t comment. The investigation is still at a very early stage, but we have no reason to believe that she did.’

  ‘Oh.’ He assimilated that. ‘So where is she now?’

  ‘In hospital.’ Strang explained what had happened and to his surprise and disgust the man burst out laughing. ‘Something funny?’

  ‘Oh God, it’s just that it’s so like Trixie, to do something bloody stupid like that! Her up a mountain—’

  ‘She was in a fevered state with what looks like blood poisoning from dog bites,’ he said coldly. ‘I’ll be getting a report on her progress later from Broadford Hospital. I expect you’ll want to go and see her.’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ Lacey said hastily. ‘Thank you for letting me know.’ He got up with some alacrity.

  ‘Just a moment,’ Strang said. ‘You said you had something to tell us. What was it?’

  He licked his lips nervously. ‘Oh – nothing, really. Just – I wanted to say I was her brother, you know, and if I could be of any help—’

  ‘I don’t think that’s true,’ Strang said flatly. ‘Could you tell me your movements last night?’

  ‘Last night?’ The handkerchief came out again and Lacey wiped his brow. ‘I – I was at home, with my partner.’

  ‘All evening?’

  ‘Er – yes.’ He didn’t meet Strang’s eyes.

  ‘And she will confirm that?’

  He gulped, then said shakily, ‘Yes, of course.’ He couldn’t have made it clearer that she wouldn’t if he’d said, ‘No, she won’t.’

  Murray chipped in. ‘It was you who came up to the house last night, wasn’t it?’

  Lacey, whose head had been bowed, looked up with a certain defiance. ‘Oh, all right then, yes, it was. But what was wrong with that? I came out to see my sister; Adam Carnegie came out with his dog and warned me off the premises, so I left. That was all.’

  ‘I think we had better get a formal statement from you. You may have been the last person to see Mr Carnegie alive.’ Strang glanced at his watch and then stood up. ‘PC Murray, perhaps you could do that and report back to me later.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she said, and drew a deep breath. This was her chance to make him realise that she was every bit as good as Tennant could be at squeezing the truth out of a witness.

  ‘Maybe you should sit down again, sir. This may take a wee while.’ Murray took the chair opposite him and took out her notebook.

  Lacey cast her a look of dislike, but obeyed. ‘I hope it won’t take too long. I’ve a lot to do today.’

  ‘I’ll need to take the full background. Did you know your sister was hoping to marry Mr Carnegie?’

  He looked as if she had struck him in the face. ‘What – what do you mean? Of – of course not.’ Realising the denial was unconvincing, he blundered on, ‘She’s – well – she’s not exactly—the idea would be preposterous.’

  ‘Preposterous? That’s not a very nice thing to say about your own sister.’

  ‘Well, she – he wouldn’t—’ He was floundering. ‘Look, can we get back to the business in hand?’

  ‘Did you know he was married?’

  ‘No – how would I know? He might have been – nothing to do with me, anyway.’

  She noticed, with sharpened interest, that he was literally twitching. ‘Why are you twitching? Is that a difficult question?’

  ‘No, no, of course it’s not.’

  He’d started sweating again too. ‘It is, though,’ she insisted. ‘You’re sweating now.’

  Lacey opened his mouth but no sound came out. He just looked at her helplessly.

  For the first time in her police career, she scented blood. She could make him tell her. This was heady stuff.

  ‘You’re a rubbish liar,’ she said scornfully. ‘We didn’t believe you when you said you’d just come to offer to help. What did you come for?’

  He was staring at her now like a rabbit transfixed by a stoat. Then he groaned. ‘Look, there was something I was going to tell you but when you said Beatrice hadn’t done it, there was no need. It’s just a personal, private thing, that’s all—’

  ‘He didn’t say she hadn’t done it, just that it was unlikely.’ She ignored a warning twinge of conscience and went on brazenly, ‘No such thing as private, in a murder investigation.’

  ‘Oh, all right then. Beatrice told me she was going to marry Adam and I didn’t trust him – didn’t think he would make her happy, you know?’

  The concerned brother bit wasn’t very convincing in the light of what he’d said already but since he was going on she let that pass.

  ‘So I asked my partner if she would phone up, just as a sort of joke, really, and say she was Adam’s wife. I’m convinced the man’s a crook and I thought that would make Beatrice realise how little she knew about him. He’d probably deny it if she challenged him but I was going to point out that he would, wouldn’t he. And that was all it was. Nothing for you there, is there?’

  Oh, he was a right little sweetheart. Murray didn’t even try to hide her distaste when she said, ‘Nice brother, you are. You didn’t think she might be a wee bit upset about that?’

  He seized on it. ‘Yes, of course I did. That was why I was coming out to see her, to comfort her.’

  ‘Having got her all wrochit up in the first place? That’s nice.’

  Lacey glared at her. ‘It’s not your place to lecture me. I thought you were just meant to be taking a statement? This seems a very unprofessional way to be going on.’

  She paused; perhaps he was right. The sense of power had gone to her head a bit, maybe. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘what happened when you got here last night? What time was it?’

  ‘I’m not sure – sometime after nine, I think. I had just parked the car when Adam appeared and I said I wanted to speak to Beatrice. He said she wasn’t feeling well and I said I wanted to see her anyway. And I – well, I may have said something about him trying to cut Beatrice off from her friends and family and then he got very aggressive, accused me of only being interested in – oh well, that doesn’t matter.’

  Murray had quite a good idea of what the accusation might have been, but mindful of the ‘unprofessional’ remark didn’t push it.

  ‘He told me to get off his land. He’d that brute of a dog with him and he just made a gesture and it snarled at me – said he’d “explain to the dog” he didn’t want to see me again. So I didn’t stay to argue. All right?’

  ‘You were probably the last person to see him alive.’

  ‘Apart from the murderer,’ Lacey pointed out.

  She made a non-committal noise. Evidence about Carnegie’s state of mind before he decided to kill himself was important, but she’d painted herself into a corner; the question was difficult to frame, after what she’d said about murder.

  She tried, ‘What sort of mood was he in?�
�� and got an incredulous stare in return.

  ‘Aggressive. I told you.’

  She tried again. ‘Yes, I got that. But did he seem upset, agitated, anything like that when he came to the door?’

  ‘Why would he be? He didn’t know someone was going to pop in and kill him, did he?’

  Defeated, Murray said, ‘Well, I think that’s all my questions. Now if I can take you through a formal statement—’

  She had to listen to Lacey’s grumbles on the way through it, but she hardly heard them. She’d tidied up one small mystery and if it did turn out not to be suicide after all, she’d scored off one suspect from the list. Having thought he’d put paid to Beatrice’s marriage plans, he wouldn’t need to kill Carnegie.

  She was well pleased with her success. Eat your heart out, Tennant!

  Marek Kaczka wasn’t at the gatehouse. That was annoying; he could be anywhere around the estate. DI Strang shielded his eyes against the watery sunshine to look around.

  In a characteristic change of mood, it was a pleasant day now. The air was clear and the sky benign; there were sun sparks glinting on the sea and a soft breeze was blowing. He looked across the bay to the Black Cuillin ridge, almost clear of mist now though with a few patches still lingering in the corries. The rain the previous night had fallen as snow up on the tops and the slopes were white, mottled with black rocks still showing through. It was a magnificent and oppressive presence; he would hate to live in its shadow, himself.

  He heard the sound of an engine, somewhere down by the shore. The tide was out, exposing the green-yellow tangle of seaweed by the rocks and the mudflats beyond, and a mini-tractor with a trailer full of bladderwrack was driving up towards the outbuildings with Kaczka at the wheel. As Strang went back up the drive the sharp, fishy smell drifted towards him, the nostalgic tang of a hundred childhood visits to the beach.

  Kaczka switched off the engine as he approached but didn’t get down, only giving him a guarded look from under heavy brows.